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Wednesday, November 25, 2009

The debate over whether microbial life existed in Mars' distant past seems to be heating up again. It seems there's some new evidence that may support this hypothesis.

The first of two new developments is that Craig Covault of spaceflightnow.com claims that new findings on the Martian meteorite ALH84001 may support the fossilized microbe hypothesis. From SpaceflightNow,

"...The new data are expected to be addressed publicly within days by NASA Headquarters in Washington, where they could become part of the political debate on future NASA mission directions..."

I'll keep you posted if anything interesting comes of this.

This news comes on the heels of the discovery of methane in Mars' atmosphere. This is a significant find, because methane is a relatively short-lived molecule in Mars' oxidizing atmosphere. Thus, something is currently (or in the very near past) emitting methane on the surface of Mars. Now, we can't jump to conclusions, but the two possible causes of this phenomenon are geological and biological. I'm personally hoping for the latter.